Gassy build-up

Hi Nick. I’m super-excited to have found your website! Wow, what a mine of info and the videos make it super-easy to understand. I live in South Africa and have just filled my first Bokashi bin. Throughout the process, I’ve noticed that the lid of the bin seems to “blow” a little between feeding. (I only feed it every 3 or 4 days.) I’ve just been sprinkling the bran on top of the food, pressing down but not mixing it through as you showed in your video. Should I be doing that rather> Also, I do harvest the tea (I have to tip the bin) but there’s not too much and it does smell a little stinky?! Thanks again and I look forward to your advice and will be sharing your URL with family and friends 🙂

Hi Sandi, Glad to hear that you are enjoying the website. Feel free to share it far and wide. The more people we can get composting their food waste, the healthier and more productive our soils, and the smaller our landfills 🙂

In response to your gassy build-up question! You shouldn’t be getting any significant gasses produced from the fermentation process. It is an indication that some putrification (rotting) is happening in the bin. This may happen for a few reasons:

1. The layers of food waste are more than an inch deep. In this case, the food waste near the centre of the layer may start to putrify slightly before the bokashi microbes can work there way through to it. Mixing the food waste can help, or just add the food waste in thinner layers to make sure the bokashi bran is well distributed.

2. The food waste is not chopped small enough. Again, this may mean that the bokashi microbes take a bit longer to get to the centre of your food scraps and some putrification may be happening. We recommend chopping food waste to less than 2″ in size.

3. There’s not enough bokashi bran. Try being a bit more generous with the bokashi bran each time you add food waste. We typically recommend adding 1-2 tbsps of bokashi bran for each inch of food waste. But if you are adding harder to compost items such as meat, bones, dairy and cooked food then we would recommend being more generous. Similarly, if you aren’t able to chop you food waste into small pieces then you should add an extra sprinkling of bran.

4. The bokashi bran is old or poor quality. When stored correctly at room temperature and out of direct sunlight, bokashi bran should remain effective for up to two years. If you consistently get gassing and bad smelling bins, I would recommend contacting your bokashi bran supplier.

In terms of the tea. It does have a smell, but it should be pickly (like the bokashi’d food waste). Try to empty the reservoir every day or two to make sure that it stays fresh. Again, bad smelling tea may be a sign of some putrification happening in the bin.

If you are getting ‘too much’ tea then you can simply pour it down the drain. The bokashi microbes are great for our drains and will help unblock slow or blocked drains and sinks. Some people recommend freezing excess tea for use during growing seasons. However, freezing will reduce the number of healthy microbes in the bokashi tea and not everyone wants to store frozen ice cubes of bokashi tea in their domestic freezer.

I hope that (rather long!) answer is helpful. Feel free to ask any more questions you may have here. Happy composting, Nicki and the Bokashi Living team